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Quinn Malone did, too.
I’ve been waiting for that. Last month, she followed that outrageous howl right to the feral shifter who chased her all the way across Louisiana. After rejecting West, she went right to her chosen mate. They bonded during the next Luna, and Quinn moved into the feral’s den near Sacre Coeur, one of the most infamous Fang Cities in the state.
According to rumor, as devoted as her male is, he’s too untamable to join pack life. He’s also an alpha, and we already have one. Quinn is still technically a member of the Sylvan Pack—she hasn’t gone lone wolf or anything—though she’s a packmate off of pack territory.
That’s why she’s visiting. She has her own cabin full of stuff that she left behind when she went after her feral. Last week, Sofia told me that Quinn asked permission from Bishop to bring Chase Wilder with her to gather up her belongings. Bishop granted it, and now they’re here.
Hoping to avoid running into Quinn, I press my luck after breakfast when I go in search of West. I can sense he’s still in Hickory, but pack land is vast and I can’t stray too far from the Omega cabin in case one of my packmates needs me.
I press my luck—and I lose when I cross paths with West’s former intended.
In so many ways, Quinn Malone is my opposite. I’m wearing a pale pink sundress. She has on a silk red blouse and a pair of tight jeans. My hair is long, wavy, and blond. Her’s is an inky black shade, straight as a pin, hitting her shoulders. I look innocent; Quinn is a walking sex magnet. Her golden eyes dare you to challenge her, even though she’s a low-ranking delta. She’s feisty, too, and all but glowing with affection for her mate.
Being bonded works wonders on her, and for the first time since the Luna told Quinn she was meant for West—and West made it clear she wasn’t—the pretty delta smiles at me when we meet.
Then she flags me down, intent on having a conversation, and I can’t think of a polite way to refuse.
“Helene, hi! How are you?”
Been better. “I’m doing great,” I say warmly. “You?”
“Amazing.”
Quinn’s beaming. Even if she wasn’t bursting with love, it’s easy to see that her new mate has done wonders for her. For months, she ducked her head, avoiding packmates, hiding out in the woods to miss out on their pitying stares. West didn’t mean to turn her into a pack outcast by rejecting their mate bond, but it happened anyway. This she-wolf was another casualty of the fallout from mine and West’s relationship, and even if I’m walking into a mating I don’t necessarily want, at least one of us is happy.
“Is your mate with you?” I ask. “I’d love to meet him.”
“Have you met a male wolf before?” Quinn retorts, a tease in her tone. “The only way I could get Chase to agree to let me come back to get my stuff is by promising I’d let him tag along.”
I glance over her shoulder. She’s right. I know male shifters, and I’m surprised when I don’t see him lurking close by, keeping a watchful eye on his mate.
“Where is he?”
“Honestly? With West.” I must have made a face because she laughs. “I know, right? But the Beta asked to talk to my mate. I told Chase to be on his best behavior and left them at my cabin. I told them both I’d be really pissed if they got blood anywhere on my stuff so don’t look so worried, Helene. They’ll be fine.”
Do I look worried? West wanting a chat with the feral shifter who came all the way to Hickory to challenge him for Quinn? Turned out he didn’t need to—obviously, since Quinn chose Chase as her mate—but forgive me if I’m a little uneasy atthatpairing.
When I change the subject, she lets me. She also doesn’t ask me about West. Smart female. Just like everyone else in Hickory, she doesn’t want to risk upsetting the Omega.
That doesn’t mean she gives another wave and walks off to wait for her mate to track her down. The opposite, actually. For the next ten minutes, she talks to me like we’re old friends. Which, technically, we are. Part of the same age group, until I became the Omega, I counted Quinn as one of my friends. She was always closer to West, but we were at leastfriendly.
And then she was picked by the Luna to be West’s seven months ago, and the last shreds of our friendship were dead and gone.
That’s one reason why I don’t understand her obvious insistence on having this conversation. It delves into small talk fairly quickly. Quinn asks about Kara and her twins, the most recent pups born into the Sylvan Pack, and answers my questions about what it’s like living outside of Hickory. She laughs off my shock that she’s content living so close to a vampire community, and smirks when she shows me the vampire fang she has dangling off of a golden chain hanging around her throat.
A ‘free pass’, she calls it. I don’t even want to know what that means, or how a she-wolf like Quinn got her paws on a vamp fang in the first place.
She looks like she’s about to tell me when, in the middle of a sentence, the fang falls from her light grip. A smile curving her lips, she glances over her shoulder just in time for us to notice a dark-haired, tanned male stalking toward us.
Towardher.
She gives him a once-over as he reaches her. “No blood,” she notes approvingly. “But no West, either. I hope that means you didn’t gut West, wash off the gore, and now you’re here to tell me we need to shift and run before the Alpha finds out.”
She’s teasing. The brooding look on her mate’s face says that maybe… just maybe… she really isn’t.
Chase nods, moving into her. “The Beta’s fine. He just… he had a question for me about”—the feral’s head shifts, eyes locking on my face—“something. Hello,” he rasps. “You must be the Omega.”
Feral or not, an alpha’s senses are unparalleled. “Yes.”
